Only Two
by ensiathe3rd
Summary: Something went wrong. Nothing new. But this time, it cost them dearly. Normally, Adam had the strength of ten men, but this weight was too much for even him to bear alone. Adam, Bree, Chase, and Leo once thought themselves an unstoppable and inseparable team, that is, until someone decided to prove them wrong.
1. To Break

**disclaimer; I do not own lab rats**

**an; check out my profile page, I have a question for you guys. Ensia**

Two Promises

Two years. He was trapped in that place for two years. A part of him thought it had been longer, somewhere closer to two hundred years, but then again he could remember the day he was caught like it was only yesterday.

He remembered eating the poor excuse that his captors dared to call food and then blaring alarms. The next thing he knew he was staring up at a white ceiling from a hospital bed. The scene was familiar to him but it was vastly different. For the first time in a long time, he smelt clean. Once upon a time he would have hated the smell, but now it was just a relief. He arms and legs weren't restrained by anything except excessive bandages covering most of his abused flesh. He wasn't in any pain that certainly was a new one. His captors had some weird obsession with pain. There was one captor who would always say, "The only constant in life is pain and the only certainty is suffering, either live with it or die from it, in the long run it doesn't matter anyway, in the end we all die." Adam would never forget those words as they had been engraved into his very soul; that voice would haunt Adam until the day he died. Calm and slow as he told Adam how he would suffer that day.

Time had long since meant anything to Adam, but he assumed that he wasn't awake long before a middle aged man unfamiliar to Adam in some sort of uniform he couldn't place came into Adam's room and sat down on one of the chairs by his bed. Adam saw his lips move but the sound had a hard time registering for Adam. Adam could only slightly comprehend a little less than half of what the man said. After all that had happened, men in uniform made him nervous. The only thing Adam really picked up on was one word, "liberated," Adam remembered that from once upon a time when Chase tried to tutor him. He was free. Adam was free of that prison. Waves of relief washed over him. He wanted to cry out in joy, but something stopped him. He faded back in and tried to actually listen to what the older man was saying. The man said something about contacting his family and Adam faded back out again. He was happy, he could go home, see Leo, Mr. Davenport, and Tasha, and eat some real food. But there was something missing in all of that. Adam's mind was never filled to the brim with pressing thoughts and this was no exception. In fact, there were only two things occupying Adam's thoughts, and he couldn't wait any longer, "Can you tell me where my siblings are?" His voice was hoarse from disuse and even Adam had to admit, lying in a hospital bed thinner than he has ever been and covered in bandages, he didn't command much attention anymore. Not even a mummy joke could fix this. Only the knowledge of his siblings' wellbeing could help. If they were okay, then whatever might have happened in the last two years didn't matter to him. He hadn't seen them since the day he was captured and the last time they were together, well it didn't look good. The only blessing was that Leo wasn't with them, he was safe.

The man stopped mid-sentence and stared at the twenty year old man in front of him. Adam had listened to Chase's and Mr. Davenport's techno lingo enough times to recognize confusion when he saw it, "Excuse me?"

It was hard for Adam to breathe, and the mounting frustration made it hard for him to remain calm, but he pushed on, "My little brother and sister. They were captured at the same time as me. If I'm free from the compound, then they must be too. Where are they? I need to talk to them."

The confusion on the older man's face shifted to pity. Adam hated that look. His eyes burned, though with tears or his heat vision, he wasn't sure. Though the other man's eyes not shifting to fear and the fact that he hadn't been able to use his bionics in a long time lead him to believe the former. The man in uniform sighed and reached out to touch Adam's shoulder. Adam flinched back at the contact and the other man took his hand back, "I'm sorry son, there were no female captives. From what we have been able to decode from the main computer, the people who kidnapped you were even harsher to the females they captured than the males. I'll spare you the details, but it's a miracle a healthy young man such as yourself lasted as long as you did. You're sister probably wasn't as lucky."

Lucky. That's the word for it. Adam knew how cruel of a word that was. His eyes blurred as he tried not to break down in front of this stranger, Adam didn't catch his name. Bree wasn't lucky enough to last two years in that hell, wasn't lucky enough to be tortured and experimented on, starved and forced into backbreaking labor or isolated from the people who cared about her for two seemingly endless years. No, if Bree was treated even worse than Adam, then maybe she was lucky, lucky enough to… "No!" Adam clenched his fists, but the weakness of his grip only made him angrier. The stranger looked startled at his outburst but settled down and continued to look at Adam with that hated look of resigned pity, "No, you're lying! She can't be gone, she just can't be. Please, no, she's not…. Please no." What little strength he had left him, tears ran down Adam's cheeks as he practically begged the man in front of him to tell him that it was just a cruel joke and his siblings were fine. A lump that was heavy for eighteen year old Adam settled in his throat. Of everything he had done in his relatively short life, there had never been anything he had wanted to do less but he needed to know and he barely managed to choke out his next question, "And what about my brother?"

There was a moment where Adam thought the man wasn't going to tell him. "I don't know for certain. We have a lot of young men who have yet to be identified." Adam's heart soared with hope for half a second, "But I won't lie to you kid, if your brother was captured with you, the odds aren't good." Adam's heart dropped back down and an overwhelming feeling of despair engulfed him. "I'm sorry, son, but I promise you we will do everything in our power to get you the answers you need to move on."

"It doesn't matter anyway" The words scarred into his brain came to the surface once more, "I'm the oldest. I was supposed to protect them. I failed and now? I'm fine and they're…" once again Adam couldn't say the word. How could he possibly tell Mr. Davenport? Leo? "No! They can't be. If anybody could have figured out how to survive, it's my siblings. They're alive, you just haven't found them. There must have been another facility. They must be there. Go there and save them." Adam knew he was grasping at straws, but it was all he could do. He wasn't strong enough for anything else. He didn't want them to be alive, he **needed** them to be. There was no other option for him.

This time the man didn't flinch at the broken boy's outburst. He did however turn his gaze away from Adam and rub the back of his head for a brief moment before facing Adam once more, "There was another facility. About six months ago one of their experiments went wrong and the resulting explosion caught the attention of the local authorities. They saved who they could, but whoever was in charge didn't seem to have a problem with ensuring that there were no living witnesses. There wasn't much left over for us to salvage, but what Intel we could collect brought us to the facility where you were." He took a deep breath, "I looked over the information collected myself but a lot of it was lost during the raid. I talked to most of the survivors personally. To the best of my knowledge, there is no Chase or Bree on any of my lists nor is there any record of what happened to them in the scraps of Intel we gathered."

"You're wrong." Adam's jaw was set, there was no mistaking the young man's seriousness. 18 year old Adam had never been this serious, but 18 year old Adam was long gone. "You must have over looked something because you didn't know they needed to be found." In all his years including the last two he had never felt as much pain as he did now, "It doesn't matter anyway." Adam made to sit up, "I'm better now and I'll find them myself."

Adam made to get out of the hospital bed but was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. Two years ago, he would have been able to break out of the grip without so much as a passing thought, but now after two seconds fighting it, Adam was dizzy and had to lie back again. "You can't expect to be at full form in just a couple of days after everything you've been through, especially when you've spent that time unconscious. Rest. The entire staff here will do all it can to get you back on your feet as quickly as possible. But that will only work if you cooperate with them. Meanwhile, I will be doing all I can to ensure that the people responsible for this will be brought to justice." Seeing that Adam was no longer fighting him, the older man released his hold. "I know this is a lot to take in, and beyond unfair, but you need to stay with us." Adam didn't respond, "I have to go and talk to some of the other patients, can I trust you to stay put for the time being?" Adam numbly nodded, he didn't think he had any fight left in him. The man gently smiled, "Atta boy." He reached into his one of his pockets and pulled out a white card and cave it to Adam, "Here is my number, call me if you need me, or are ready to talk. Any information you might have could be of great help" Adam could only nod and numbly take the card that was handed to him.

All he could feel was pain, sad considering he thought he just got rid of it. The only constant in life is pain. All he wanted to do was rip out his heart and chuck it across the room just to end the agony. The only certainty is suffering. But deep down he knew he wasn't strong enough, not now at least. The other man bid him farewell and left, but once again, Adam wasn't listening.

Gone, they were both gone. Adam couldn't wrap his head around it. They had close calls in the past, but they had always managed to pull through. But this? This couldn't be reality. Adam didn't think he could ever accept this as reality. The days of his captivity had long since blurred together in a never ending cycle of pain, hunger and loneliness. Either live with it. Without hesitation he would do it all again and once more, just to have them with him. No kind of pain his captors could ever dish out could hurt as much as this. But the cold cruel truth made itself known. Was it right for him to have wanted them to suffer as he did for as long as he did? Bree and Chase were strong, but not nearly as strong as him. What it came down to was that, Adam was trapped between wanting them to have died to avoid suffering or suffered to avoid dying. It tore him apart. Or you die from it. Tears raced down his face, but Adam wasn't sure if they were from sorrow or anger. In the long run, it doesn't matter anyway. Adam couldn't change what had happened, but what he could do was make the people responsible pay and pay dearly for what they did to him and his siblings and all the other innocent people they captured and tortured and killed. He didn't care if it took him two or two hundred more years. He would do it. His next words albeit whispered filled the silent room, "Bree, Chase, I'll get us justice, I promise." and that was a promise he intended to keep no matter the cost. In the end, we all die.


	2. To Make

**disclaimer; i do not own lab rats**

**AN; Thanks for your patience. Ensia**

Two Deals

March 10, 2017

Adam couldn't focus. Or else, he couldn't focus on anything but what he absolutely didn't want to focus on. There was a TV in his room, but it only had one channel and it was playing some sort of afternoon news show in some language Adam didn't understand. Even if he could, all noise seemed far away or nonexistent and his vision faded in and out of focus. When the host started interviewing a boy, Sean something, that reminded Adam painfully of Chase, he couldn't continue and turned the machine off. There wasn't much for him to do in his room. Mostly, he ran through what went wrong the day they were captured, but in every possible scenario the outcome was the same. Adam wasn't the smart one in his family. Chase and Bree, heck even Leo could have figured something out, but they weren't here. Questions upon questions hit Adam upside the head, but he had no answers for them. The pain he was in would fade out only to crash back down on him whenever his thoughts turned back to his missing siblings. _Missing. _Adam didn't believe, and he wouldn't believe that these people stopped at two compounds. Call it intuition, call it denial or flat out call it stupid, Adam didn't care, he knew that somehow Bree and Chase were still alive somewhere. He had to save them.

The only good thing about that day was that for the first time in what felt like forever he actually ate something that could be considered food. True it was a bowl chicken broth that Adam wasn't even able to finish. Man, he must have lost his touch. After being nearly starved to death, Adam would've thought that he'd be able to eat more. The lady that had brought it to him told him it was normal. Adam hadn't responded, he felt like he had nothing left to say. Silent, small appetite, weak, once upon a time those words would never in a million years been used to describe the twenty year old, but a million years came quicker than Bree could run, it was only two.

Adam was never much one for thinking, but it was all he could do now. Chase would have been proud. He twirled the white card in his fingers, he had already read it so many times he could recite it back from memory. Joseph Martin, the man who was going to try and hunt down the people responsible for his and his family's pain. It wasn't fair. Some random stranger shouldn't have the right to take these people down. He should. But he wondered if he could. Adam looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers, he felt the familiar tugging on his muscles that he always associated with his super strength. It was weak, but Adam was thrilled he could at least feel it. At least one thing was going in his favor.

He turned to the right and stared at the open door into the hallway. It was pretty quiet, but Adam knew there was no way it was empty. The compound he was at, had at least one hundred prisoners at a time. Adam knew none of them, and even if he had, they cycled through so quickly it would have been a useless endeavor to try and make friends. Adam hated himself for thinking it, but it was the truth, and there was nothing he could do to try and change that. But he could help now. He _would _help now. If Mr. Martin was interviewing everyone then Adam figured that he'd still be at least in the hospital. Adam shifted his attention from the door to the floor just behind the crib bars that Adam never understood. He swallowed and took a deep breath. Then he put his hand against the cold metal and pushed down. It gave underneath his fingers, Adam allowed himself to smile as tears pooled in his eyes. After two years of being denied the very definition of who he was, it was like being reunited with an old friend. It could never make up for Bree or Chase but at least he didn't lose everything.

He stared at the cold floor below and not giving himself time to rethink his decision, all the while angry that he actually thought the decision through a first time, he swung his legs around and placed his bare feet on the cold floor. He slowly put his weight on them until he was standing. He was almost proud of his accomplishment. Then the world tilted to the left. Or was it the right? It didn't matter anyway as a few seconds later it tilted the other direction. Black entered his vision and Adam slunk to the ground. An alarm blared in his ears. Adam tensed his muscles, he may not be as strong as he once was but there was no way he was going to go back to The Place.

A young woman a little older than Adam ran into the room dressed in scrubs. Upon seeing Adam on the floor she put a hand to her heart, and calmed down. She rushed over to one of the monitors and quickly shut off the alarm. She turned to Adam and knelt down to help him up. She was cautious about how she moved around him. Adam had a hard time registering the fear in her eyes until he realized that his muscles were still coiled, ready to strike out at anything he deemed a threat. His thoughts were going a mile a minute and he couldn't keep up. His heart thudded in his ears and his breathing quickened. Stop thinking. Empty mind, empty mind, oh God, he missed that. He met her dark green eyes. She smiled softly at him. "Okay Adam, I need you to listen to me, you can do that right?"

_"Why can't you just listen to orders!?"_

He nods, but it feels like there is a curtain separating him from reality. His thoughts, his memories, keep beating him down before he can pull himself to the other side. He fights with all of his might to hold on to the girl in front of him. Her gentle voice, her eyes, her smile. In this moment, she's the only thing he can believe is real. "Okay here's what I need you to do. I need you to breathe." Didn't she know he was trying? There was no air in the room. She must have seen his struggle. "Follow me." She started taking deep breaths in through her nose and releasing slowly through her mouth. Adam couldn't do it, the last time he followed that order was the last time he saw his siblings. He did however listen to the steady sounds of her breathing and focused in on the white noise. It calmed him down. His breathing slowed and he coughed. His chest ached, and he was still having trouble bringing oxygen into his lungs. His muscles lost their tension and he slumped forward, all the strength he had been building that day wasted, and he was back to square one.

Tears of anger and shame pooled in Adam's eyes, "I'm sorry," but he wasn't talking to her.

She didn't seem to notice. She shook her head and lightly waved him off, "Don't be. I may not be an expert but I do know that what you're feeling, whatever you're feeling, is perfectly normal. It's nothing to be ashamed of or sorry for."

The young woman was starting to come into focus and Adam fought with all he had to keep her there. He could feel his mind trying to drag him back, but he was afraid of that place as long as he lived he didn't want to go back to the thoughts, the memories, the regrets, the pain. She didn't understand, Adam knew she couldn't, but she was real. "Thank You."

She nodded. "Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for. Now how about you let me help you up?" She held out her hand to him. She was smaller than him. Not as much as his siblings were, _are_, but he still doubted that she would be able to help him. Slowly, carefully, cautiously, he took the offered hand. Her fingers were ice cold, and as soon as he touched the smooth skin, Adam almost pulled back. He forced himself to hold on as his heart raced at the contact. For the first time in two years, he actually had skin to skin contact with someone who wasn't trying to cause him pain. It was strange to say the least.

Slowly she pulled his arm around her shoulders and with a surprising amount of strength helped him to his feet and onto the bed. He let her and offered no resistance. Numbly, he let go of her hand, and the crushing loneliness returned full force.

She stared at the ruined piece of metal that made up the bar, and shook her head in what Adam could only guess was disappointment. She sat down on the chair next to the bed, "What were you after, Adam?"

He ignored the oddity that she knew his name without him ever saying it. He flipped the card in his fingertips, "I wanted to find him."

She tilted her head, "Who?" She considered the card in his hand. "Mr. Martin?"

He nodded, "I needed to talk to him."

"Okay then, I can get him for you. You really shouldn't be straining yourself so soon in your recovery."

He mumbled, "I don't have time for that."

She leaned forward, "Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"Nothing." This whole thing was a waste of his time, he needed to get out. He needed to help Bree and Chase. He needed to take down the people responsible.

She rubbed her knees and looked away. The young woman bit her lip before turning back to Adam, "Alrighty then, if you can just stay put, I can go get Mr. Martin. Deal?" Adam nodded in her general direction. She stood up and gave him a hard look. Adam shifted under her gaze, "Okay, I'll be right back. Stay put."

Natalee smiled softly and dashed out of the room. Adam was once again left alone. He had time to ensure himself that there actually were thirty-six tiles on the ceiling when the girl with green eyes walked back into the room, Joseph Martin trailing behind her. The man had at some point changed out of his military uniform into jeans and a t-shirt. He didn't look half as scary as he did before. The pair paused at the door, and she whispered something Adam couldn't hear. Joseph put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a hard look, she nodded and turned to Adam. She brushed her hair behind her ear and gave him a small smile and wave before turning and walking away. Joseph watched her walk away before walking into the room.

He was cautious and slow as if Adam might break, "Hey, Natalee said you wanted to see me?"

So, her name was Natalee? Doesn't matter. Adam schooled his expression into one of control and nonsense. He should have been surprised at how easy it was. "I want in."

Joseph frowned, "In what exactly."

Adam was getting angrier, "You said you were hunting down the people who hurt my siblings. I want in."

Joseph took a seat beside Adam, "Son, it's not that simple."

"Why can't it be?" Adam has been told his whole life that things weren't as simple as he made them out to be. He was sick of it. There was no sense in it. "I'm Adam Davenport. One of the bionic teens, I have abilities and information that you need."

Joseph didn't look surprised at this information, but continued to look at Adam with concern, "You're also mad."

"I'm not crazy!"

Joseph put his hands up in a calming motion, "Not crazy, traumatized yes, but not crazy. I'm sorry, poor choice of words. You're angry, son." He put his hands down when Adam stopped looking like he was going to lash out, "In my experience, anger is dangerous, it gets people hurt. It makes you do things that you wouldn't normally do. I know it's tempting, I know you want to help take these people down. But for the safety of a lot of people, I can't let you do that."

"Well, what do you expect me to do?"

"Go home, get a therapist, reconnect with your family…"

"They took my family!" Adam was breathing really hard, "They hurt them and countless other people. I'm going to take them down whether you help me or not."

"I can't give you the magic answer to this, but what I do know is that hurting them will not bring them back, nor will it help you."

"I have to do this."

"You have to take the time to recover."

"Sir, the last time I saw my brother he was on the ground and bleeding, the last time I saw my sister, I fell unconscious while she was fighting alone with a broken arm that _I _gave her. I then spent two years, useless, while they suffered for my failure to protect them. And if I'm right, they have been doing this to uncountable numbers of innocent people for much longer. And now that I'm out, you want me to sit on the sidelines like a good boy, while more families like mine are torn apart and scarred. I can't do that. Most of my life I was raised to be a hero. Let me be a hero. Please."

Joseph rubbed the back of his head and sighed. Then he looked long and hard at Adam. "Can you promise that you can stay calm? No matter what happens, can you promise me that?"

"No" Adam knew there was no sense in lying. "But I can try."

"And if I tell you to run will you?"

"I'll certainly give it a good thought."

"You aren't making such a good case for yourself."

"I know." Adam tried to swallow the lump in his throat with little success. "I can't say that this isn't personal, because it is. I know what can happen when things get personal. He tried to kill me and my family multiple times. Almost succeeded too." Adam looked at his hands and flexed his fingers. "I can't promise that I won't let this get to me, but I do know this is something I have to do. I promise you that I will try."

Joseph rubbed his face. "If I let you in on this, whatever we uncover, I can guarantee you won't like it."

"I know."

"This isn't just some villain trying to take over the world, these are scores of radicals who thrive on destruction. And they are growing in staggering numbers each day. This is bigger than anything you have ever dealt with."

"I know." A part of Adam hoped it was. The bigger it was, the more likely there were other facilities, and the more facilities there were; the longer Adam could hold on to a shred of hope that his siblings were still out there somewhere. He knew it was unlikely, but the denial clawed at his heart and he wasn't ready to let it go. For now, the thing he wanted most was to bring the people responsible down any way he had to.

Adam could tell he was wearing the man down as Joseph kept trying to convince him to change his mind, "I can't promise your safety."

"I don't expect you to. I'm a hero, danger comes with the territory." Not that Adam really cared about his safety anymore.

Joseph sighed, "A week." Adam looked up in confusion, "Take a week to recover. Let the staff take care of you and heal what they can, after that, if you still feel you're up to this and the staff deems that you can handle yourself. We can talk again then."

"I can't wait." Adam really couldn't.

"You'll have to. Because I won't let you come with me in the field in your condition." By the man's tone, it was the best offer he could make and Joseph clearly didn't like it.

Adam almost dared to hope, "You mean I can help?"

"Get some rest, and in a week we'll get started. Deal?" Joseph extended his hand to Adam.

Adam knew he wasn't getting any better, nodded, and gripped the older man's hand, "Deal."

"Okay, then we'll contact your father and…"

"Don't." Joseph raised an eyebrow at Adam. "Don't contact them. I don't have much left. I don't want them to be put in the middle of this." Adam missed them dearly, but he couldn't face them, not yet. Not until he had done everything in his power to bring his siblings home and bring the people responsible for their pain to justice.

"I can respect that." Joseph smiled sadly at him.

"So, where do we start?"

"How about from the beginning?"


	3. Too Long

**disclaimer; i don't own lab rats, but on that note if i said i did, would anyone actually check?**

**AN; i love dramatic irony, you may want to get used to it. Ensia**

Two Years

March 22, 2015

Leo sat at his desk and tapped a pen on the glass surface over and over again. Douglas and Big D were pacing back and forth mirroring each other. They had been doing it for the past two hours and didn't appear to be stopping anytime soon. Time kept on moving, until Adam, Bree, and Chase trudged through the entryway through the tunnels. Adam was carrying all of their gear and once he came into the lab he dropped all three bags on the ground in reckless exhaustion. Bree was cradling her right arm in her left. Chase looked pissed. And they all looked filthy and exhausted. But aside from Bree's arm and some scratches and bruising here and there and being partially covered in an identifiable gunk, they seemed unharmed.

Big D ran up to them, "What went wrong?"

Bree ignored him, "Leo, go upstairs." But she didn't seem to have much force behind it.

Leo stood, "No, I'm a part of this team and I'm staying."

Bree sighed, on any other day she might have fought the point further, but she was tired and in pain and just done, "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you." And with that she walked to her capsule.

Chase interjected to answer his dad's original question, "They knew we were coming somehow. Everything just fell apart from there. We were outnumbered from the beginning, and we lost a third of our fighting force when Bree fell and broke her arm."

"In multiple places, it feels like." Bree walked out of her capsule in sweatpants and a tank top. Her right arm exposed and bent in unnatural angles, "And besides," She hissed as she hopped up on the holo desk, "it wouldn't have happened if Chase hadn't used his molecular kinesis to knock over the barrels."

Mr. Davenport got out the medical wire and attached it to Bree's neck. Adam, Chase, and Leo walked over to them and they stood in a huddle. Chase crossed his arms at Bree, "It was necessary, and I told you that I had done it, if you had been more careful…"

"How can you not feel that?" Leo was staring at Bree's out of place arm and looked like he might vomit.

Bree raised her eyebrow at him, in an "I warned you" type manner. "I do." She turned back to Chase, "You told us that you knocked over the barrels, not their contents. Do you realize how hard it is to safely stop when running 400 miles per hour on a regular floor? A wet one is so much harder, and really Chase,"

"If you had just been watching where you were going…"

"Yeah, because at 400 miles per hour, all I have to do is 'watch where I'm going.'"

"Enough," Chase and Bree shut up but still glared at one another. Mr. Davenport had pulled up the holographic x-ray of Bree's arm several points were flashing red, "Okay, it looks like," He examined the read out, "You managed to break your radius, clavicle, and three of the eight bones in your wrist quite severely and fractured your humorous." Bree winced.

Leo made a face, "Nasty."

Bree shot Leo a glare while Mr. Davenport continued, "Your heart rate and temperature are up slightly, but on the plus side, you seem to be healing quicker than normal. Same as last time. Your bionics seem to be getting more adept and efficient at fixing the damage. The only problem I can gather is that setting them at this point would probably do more harm than good. Sorry." Bree made a face, but nodded in understanding, "However, it shouldn't be that bad, I could see you being fine by morning."

Douglas shot in, "I could take a look at your chip and speed that up."

Bree slowly pulled her arm to her as Mr. Davenport removed the wire, "Yeah, and have another incident like the one where you tried to fix my chip. Never again."

"You're not going to let that one go, are you? You made it out just fine." Douglas looked ready to argue, but probably knew he would never win.

Leo interjected, "What I don't get is that when she severely breaks her arm she'll be fine by morning, but when I do, I'm told I'll never use my arm again, unless I have a probably illegal procedure done to it. How is that fair?" Douglas looked around the room and avoided the question of the legality of his actions.

Bree just rolled her eyes at him, "You got bionics out of that deal, shut up." Leo folded his arms and grumbled something unintelligible. Bree ignored him regardless.

Chase carefully stepped forward and took Bree's arm from its curled place near her abdomen. She winced, but let her brother take it. He examined the damaged limb, and scrunched his face in disgust, "I hate the sound that makes." His voice sounded angry, but it didn't sound like he was angry at Bree. His sister looked down at the point where they touched and looked up at him concerned. He cleared his throat and looked up at everyone else, "They were ready for us, how?"

"Easy, they were psychic."

Chase turned on Adam, "Can you be serious for once?"

Bree winced, "Easy Chase."

"No, this mission could have gone so much better if Adam hadn't goofed off instead of taking things seriously."

"Hey, I take a ton of things seriously. You just can't handle it when things go wrong and you're plan doesn't work out."

"The plan was working fine…"

"Your plan was stupid."

"It was not! Why can't you just listen to orders!?"

"Chase! Let go!" Chase sent a glare at Bree.

"No! I'm sick of him messing up the plan every single time."

Leo looked between his siblings and his eyes went wide, "No man, seriously, let go." And Leo stepped in-between his siblings and grabbed Chase's wrist. Leo put just enough pressure on the limb so that Chase's fingers loosened. Chase looked down and realized what was wrong. He calmed down and let go of Bree's arm with a mumbled apology. Bree nodded and took a deep breath while pulling her arm back to herself.

Mr. Davenport stepped in once again. "Okay guys, this mission wasn't our best, in fact it was one of our worst, but yelling at one another won't help that. So let's all take a step back and figure this out. Yes, they somehow knew you were coming, but that wasn't the only thing that went wrong here. We need to focus on what we do know."

Adam, Bree, and Chase took a deep breath and nodded at their father.

"Okay, who wants to start?"

Bree awkwardly pulled up her feet onto the table and crossed them underneath her. She pulled her arm closer still and winced at the effort, "I don't know how but they could appear wherever I would come out of a dash. They could find me, even when I was invisible." She looked at her father, "It was like they could track us, which should be impossible. Shouldn't it?"

Leo looked around, "Not necessarily, I mean Douglas managed to hack your GPS systems to find you before. Could we be dealing with another hacker?"

"My programing is practically flawless, no one but me would ever have a chance." Douglas looked appalled at the suggestion of anyone ever cracking his systems.

Mr. Davenport put his hand to his chin, "Regardless, it may be an angle we need to explore."

Douglas rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Fine, I'll look into it."

"In the meantime, we managed to mainly shut down their operations, but," Chase looked worriedly at all of his family, "Mr. Davenport, these people are dangerous. We only managed to win because they were careless about how they were stocking their equipment and Bree's fall caused a chain reaction."

Bree smirked slightly, "Glad I could help."

Adam grinned, "Yeah, it was awesome, like a bunch of big dominoes. One was bash, and the other was capow, and then…"

Leo cut him off, "Yeah, we get it a bunch of big crashes." Adam looked downtrodden at the idea of not being able to continue. "You know what you should've done when things started to go crazy?" Leo didn't give any one time to answer, "You should have called me. I would have gone all bionic arm on them." He imitated throwing a punch.

Bree rolled her eyes and huffed, "Yeah, let's hope we're never that desperate."

Chase continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I managed to download some of their intel from the main computer but most of it was erased before we could get there." He pulled out a flash drive and handed it to his father, "From what I can tell, the files themselves are encrypted, it could take a while to sort out what is actual important information."

"I got it." Douglas took the flash drive from his brother.

"Where do we go from here?" Leo asked.

"We're going to stop them." Adam said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's not that simple, Adam." Chase's shoulders slumped as he leaned his hands on the holo desk beside Bree.

Adam looked ready to argue, but Mr. Davenport spoke up, "Well, for now, we don't have much to go on. It's late and you've had a long day, why don't you guys rest up, and Douglas and I will work on it and let you know if we find something."

"I'm fine, I can stay up and help." Chase faced his father with no room for doubt.

"I can too." The prospect of Leo helping apparently didn't thrill anyone but no one commented on it.

"Well, in that case, if no one has any objections, Adam come on, let's leave the nerds to their work. We can see what's left in the fridge." Bree uncrossed her legs and hopped off the desk.

"Yeah, I'm starving." Adam smirked while the other men made various faces indicating that they were not happy with the nerd comment but knew it would be useless to try and combat the term. They then dispersed to do their various tasks. Adam let out a small chuckle and walked around the desk to his capsule, the automatic program changed his clothes into jeans and a t-shirt. He bounded over to the archway leading to the elevator. When he noticed Bree wasn't by his side he turned back to her standing where he left her, "Hey, Bree, you coming?" He gestured in the general direction in which he was headed as if she needed the direction.

"Yeah, coming."

Bree started to walk toward her older brother when Mr. Davenport caught her left shoulder, "If you want something for the pain, you let me know okay? I know you don't like it but…"

She sighed and smiled at Mr. Davenport, "I'll be fine, Dad. I've done much worse."

"I know," And he wasn't the least bit happy about it, "but just to be safe, try and get into your capsule soon, it will help you heal faster." Bree nodded and started to walk to her brother when Mr. Davenport called out to her again, "And remember, be careful of using your other bionics until it heals. Something in the programing could go wrong and…"

"theoretically cause permanent damage." Bree waved him off with her left hand, "I know, I know. We've been over this a million times."

"And we'll do it a million more times until you actually listen." Bree smirked and turned back to her brother. Together they walked to the elevator and left the _brainiacs _of the Davenport family to their work. "Okay, guys we have a long night ahead of us, let's find these guys."

From their various places around the room, Douglas at the counsel closest to Bree's capsule, Chase at the one closest to the couches, and Leo at his mission specialist desk, they all nodded and got back to work with Mr. Davenport joining them at the main holo desk.

March 23, 2015

It was early in the morning and Mr. Davenport had just woken everyone up. Leo had been with him when they went downstairs but promptly went to his mission specialist desk and fell asleep on it. Douglas was unaccounted for. Bree hopped up on the holo desk and Adam leaned against it next to her. Chase sat in one of the swivel chairs by another console looking in. He looked like he was about to join Leo in slumber, but had managed to force himself to stay awake.

Bree rotated her right arm around in its socket, then shrugged both of her shoulders only wincing slightly. "Feels healed."

She hopped down from the desk. Mr. Davenport walked around with a tablet obviously only slightly paying attention, "Yeah, well, be careful. It may be healed but it's not up to where it was, it could break again without much effort."

Bree gave him a mock salute that he was too preoccupied to catch, "Aye, Aye, Captain."

"Oh, are we being pirates now. I guess all we need is a parrot." Chase rolled his eyes at his brother. Adam caught it and smirked at him, "You know one of those small creatures that repeats useless information over and over again." Adam jokingly put his hand to his chin mimicking a man thinking as he looked hard at his brother, "Then again."

Chase caught on, "Don't even think about it." Bree giggled into her hand.

"I never think, takes too long."

Bree laughed and turned to their father, "So are you going to tell us why we are up at 5 in the morning or do you want us to wait another hour for you to find your way out of that tablet?"

Mr. Davenport sighed exasperatedly but looked up from the tablet regardless, "Okay," he tapped the screen of his tablet a few times and addressed his kids. "I've been looking," Chase shot him a glare. Mr. Davenport sighed dramatically, "_We've _been looking into the data from the facility you guys infiltrated yesterday. It's bad."

After a moment of silence, Bree crossed her arms and rose an eyebrow, "Care to elaborate on that?"

Mr. Davenport tapped his tablet and a holo image of a long cylindrical piece of metal that had a tip on it that looked like the driving head of a screwdriver appeared in the middle of the room, "These guys had weapons and tech that is years away. This stuff is advanced even for a brilliant inventor such as myself." Chase discretely looked at Bree. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. They remained quite while Mr. Davenport's ego continued his speech. "I mean if I actually was in the weapons business, I could do it easy." Donald looked at the expressions on his kids' faces and cleared his throat, "But to the point, we thought that these guys were just a ragtag team of anarchist and as demonstrated by last night's events we were proven wrong."

"Wait, that's what we're afraid of?" Adam looked again at the cylindrical object, "It doesn't look like much. I've seen scarier in the dumpster outside of school."

Not bothering to inquire as to when and why Adam was combing through the dumpster, Mr. Davenport answered his son's original question, "It doesn't look like much, but from what I can gathered it packs a nasty punch, and their itinerary states that they had just shipped out three cases of these yesterday before you guys showed up."

"We know all that, so what about this couldn't wait until normal people hours to tell us?"

He pulled up a satellite image of a large warehouse looking building surrounded by forest on all sides, "Early this morning, a hiker in the Rockies stumbled across this warehouse and reported it to the local authorities. It may not seem like much but," he zoomed in on one of the guards, "seem familiar?" in his hands was a silver cylinder. "Apparently all of their paperwork is in order and there haven't been any reports of wrong doings so the authorities' hands are tied. Your mission is to go in and get what intel you can so that the authorities can come in and take these guys down. Douglas left earlier to see if he can get any information from some of his old contacts, but it may not pull anything." The three kids nodded in understanding, "Time is of the essence, these guys have been avoiding prosecution for a long time and that's only what we know of. We need to take these guys down and fast so they can't grow anymore or before they really start doing some damage. I don't like sending you out so soon after your last mission, but we don't have much of a choice."

"We're on it."

Mr. Davenport nodded, "Okay, I've imputed the coordinates into Bree's GPS system. You shouldn't have any problems getting there and the forest and general terrain should provide you with plenty of cover." He looked at his kids in turn, "Be careful."

All three nodded. Adam looked around and caught sight of Leo sleeping away, "Do you think we should wake him?"

Bree shrugged, "Let him sleep, we won't be long anyway."


	4. To Remember

**disclaimer; i do not own lab rats**

**An; I have wrote, rewrote, deleted and wrote again with this chapter, i hope you like it. also i do not speak french. Ensia**

Two Names

The air was cold in the morning before dawn. A breeze hit the trees in childlike playfulness, and before they could respond to the impromptu game of tag, the little rascal ran away again daring anyone to accept his invitation to a race. Like the mothers they were, the trees tried to catch the child in their long arms, but he proved too quick for them. Swirling and jumping and tossing and turning, he moved quickly without purpose and in the early morning before the dawn when the rest of his playground slept, he laughed. Nothing could stop him, nothing could hurt him. And so he kept on playing. What did he care of war? What did he know of death? Innocence, sweet and gentle, was his as it should be with all children. Though, of course, he was luckier than most. He didn't have to grow up.

Three beings walked through his playground in the darkness. Excited at the prospect of new playmates, he ran past them and playfully messed up their hair. He hoped to get a reaction from them, so they would come and play with him. They didn't, but he wasn't bothered by it, he just went on his merry way as his mothers tried and failed to catch him. The beings he left behind kept on their path. The shorter of the two boys walked surefooted as though he could see the path ahead of him. The girl would walk a few steps and then jump onto one of the trees next to her, she would stick there like a tree frog not indigenous to this area of the world and with little effort jump to another just ahead of the trio on the path. Only the last of the three was having trouble navigating the path in the darkness before dawn.

After tripping on what must have been the millionth root, which it wasn't, Chase had counted, Adam stopped and groaned in frustration, "I don't understand." Chase and Bree both stopped and thought for a minute, no, too easy. "Why can't Bree just run us there?"

Bree hopped back to a tree near Adam and with the grace of a gymnast, jumped down, "Short version, I don't want to." There were times when Bree lied, she was quite good at it, but sometimes blunt honesty just worked out better for her. "Longer version, if they really are tracking our GPSs we don't want to tip them off. Chase and I know the way enough that we can find the building with them turned off. So no harm there."

Adam crossed his arms, "I still think we can take them."

Chase rolled his eyes, but in the darkness, only someone with his eyes could see it, "Yeah, because that worked out so well for us yesterday."

Adam let out a breath of relief, "Finally, you get it."

"Adam, yesterday went horribly."

"We won, didn't we?" The simple truth often held the most logical of points. Adam didn't need book smarts or street smarts to understand this. Nothing under the sun was naturally complicated, but people often made it so, and Adam was often left behind. Not because he didn't understand the problem, but because he didn't understand the complicated twists and turns people put on it.

"Ugh, you're impossible." And with that Chase turned and they kept going. The only thing was, Adam was simple; his logic, while skewed sometimes, was almost never wrong. He didn't understand why that made him impossible or stupid to the rest of the world.

In a short while, they came to a ridge that overlooked their target. If they didn't know it was there, they would've overlooked it. It was buried in the wilderness of the forest and hidden from plain sight by trees and undergrowth. They lay down on their stomachs and watch. Chase put a finger to his temple and his vision expanded. Innumerable amounts of data jumped into his line of sight. Flashes of numbers and text sped through his line of sight at a rate nothing and no one but Chase could ever hope to process. Having a mind faster than a supercomputer might not seem as practical or cool as super strength, super speed, laser vision or anything else that his siblings could do, but it did have its advantages. After completing a task in five seconds what fifty people couldn't accomplish in less than three hours, Chase came to a conclusion that set him on edge. "What is that about?" he whispered mainly to himself.

His siblings heard none the less, "What was what about?"

He turned to his siblings and even though he knew they couldn't see him, he saw them look his general direction, "There isn't anybody there."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"How does that make sense? They were here earlier."

Chase ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know, maybe they heard about the hiker too and decided to bail before anyone came to investigate"

"Maybe they were abducted by aliens." Adam could feel his sibling's gazes on him. He just shrugged, "It could happen."

"Okay, ignoring Adam, what do we do now?"

"We're here anyway, let's check it out. Who knows? Maybe they left something behind, we can use." Though Chase really doubted it, he didn't want this trip to be for nothing.

"Okay let's go" Bree climbed to her feet, but Chase caught her foot before she could go any further.

"Hold up, we don't know what's inside. We need to be careful." Bree probably knew Chase could see her rolling her eyes.

Adam rose to join his sister, "Aw you're no fun Chase, where is your sense of adventure?"

Chase groaned but got up just the same and then they walked to the compound. They went around the walls until they came to a door with an electrical panel. The system was on full shut down. It only served to further Chase's belief that they wouldn't find anything there. It was only pure stubbornness that kept him from calling it quits. After Adam was so kind as to open the door for them, they snuck their way in.

The walls were cold and silent, the halls seemed to stretch on forever. Thankfully, dim lights hung from the ceiling and Adam and Bree could actually see where they were going. Adam was more grateful for this than Bree. They stepped in and walked down the hallway. Chase wondered why they would leave the lights on if they had left, but said nothing.

They kept going until Adam groaned, "I'm bored."

The three stopped their progress and the younger two looked at him irritated. Bree crossed her arms, "Not that I don't agree, but what do you want us to do about it?"

Maybe Adam would have retorted, maybe he wouldn't have, but Chase raised a hand and silenced them anyway. His siblings watched as he took a deep breath through his nose. He turned his head and did it again. "Do you guys smell that?"

"No, not all of us have super senses, Chase. What do you smell?"

"Something sweet." He walked forward and turned down the first right branch he found. Adam and Bree looked at each other, worked their silent communication that they were so good at, and shrugged. They then followed their baby brother. Chase kept walking until he heard a slight splash. He knelt down and looked at the clear-ish liquid that covered the floor. Adam and Bree stopped behind him.

After a while, Adam was bored again, "Chase if you really want to play in the water we can let you have the kiddie pool at home."

Chase bit back an exasperated sigh, "This isn't water."

Bree tilted her head and rose an eyebrow, "Well, what is it then?"

Chase tried to think of a way to explain it so his siblings could understand, well, so at least Bree could understand, "Basically a blending of a bunch of chemicals that really shouldn't be put together. It can be toxic, but only after periods of long exposure."

"Yeah kinda figured."

Chase shook his head, "No, I mean yes, but the thing is, it's not the amount you're exposed to, it's the time you're exposed to it. Anyone who is even halfway proficient with dangerous chemicals should know this. So why leave it about in massive quantities?" Upon receiving no answers, Chase looked again at the substance, "It's weird."

"Care to elaborate?"

"That chemical that was in the barrels yesterday, the one you slipped on," Bree rolled her eyes but let her brother continue, "it was almost exactly the same combination of chemicals as this with a few more chemicals that almost completely neutralized it's toxicity, but they protected those barrels like their lives depended on it."

Adam didn't understand, "Why would they protect the nontoxic stuff, if they're trying to kill people the toxic stuff would work much better. And why spill it over the floor?"

Chase couldn't say anything against him when Adam was actually right, "That's the point, Adam. I don't know." Chase stood from his crouch, "Let's find out. Follow me."

"What about the whole toxic thing?"

"We should be fine, we won't be exposed for long."

And the youngest Davenport stepped into the puddle and kept walking. Adam followed by first jumping into the liquid to create a small splash and continuing on as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary. Bree crinkled her face at the prospect of being in an environment where her speed would be compromised, a part of her swore she felt her arm flare in pain at the thought, but quickly smoothed her features and followed her family. The hallway continued into a section with doors left wide open, silently the three split up to check individual rooms. The liquid covered the floors and even a bit of the walls in all the rooms they came across. Chase found a computer in the fourth room he checked, but try as he may, the computers were completely wiped and he couldn't find anything of use to them. It was Bree's fifth room that actually held anything remotely interesting. Only to call it a room felt like an understatement, the door opened up on a catwalk overlooking a vast factory floor below with machines as far as the eye could see. Well, human eyes anyway.

Various machines dominated the scene, all of them making one loud noise or another. A series of conveyor belts traveled, crisscrossed, and looped throughout the place; weapons in various stages of construction and of various sizes flowed from machine to machine. Countless tools of destruction being made every second with no end in sight.

Chase was the smartest person on the planet. There was no way that there was nothing defending the monstrosity in front of him. At the rate it was going, it was probably shipping out hundreds if not thousands of weapons a day. Weapons ready to be shipped to rogue factions all over the world and cause untold damage. Their mission was to gather intel and get out, but every day that delayed this place being shut down was causing irreversible damage. On the other hand, the personnel in the facility, if any, were letting them go for the time being. Any direct attack would be cause for the end of the truce. As of yesterday it was too clear in Chase's mind that they were grossly unprepared for a fire fight with these guys. Chase could see the pros and cons of each plan clearly, and when the day was over it would be his choice. Chase was the smartest person on the planet, but he was a hero first.

"Okay, guys we need to stop this thing from making any more weapons." For all their disagreements, and sibling rivalry, this was something they three could whole-heartedly agree upon. Chase stared out at the factory floor below him and tried to come up with a plan that would work. His vision went green and numbers and data raced across his eyes. Then something else appeared to him, a heat signature came from a spot not too far from them on the factory floor. From the build, Chase assumed it was a female, and she was just leaning against the machine. He figure she might be a problem. "Bree, there is a girl down there." He pointed to where he saw the heat signature, "Can you check her out?"

"Yeah, you want me to knock her out?"

Chase considered, "Not right away. Just see what we are dealing with. If she's going to be a problem, let us know and we can decide from there. Be careful."

"Give me a minute." Bree turned invisible. After that, both boys assumed their sister had left, and Chase continued to examine the machine.

Adam looked over his brother's shoulders, "Why can't we just smash it?"

"It's not that simple, Adam."

"Why not?"

Chase let out a grown of frustration, "Because we are trying to be subtle and stealthy."

"Why are we doing that? They'll know it was us anyway."

Chase glared at his brother, "That's not the point, just let me work."

"Right. And what was it you do again?"

Chase rolled his eyes, but remained silent.

Meanwhile, Bree had found the staircase going to the factory floor. If there was anything she hated about being invisible, it was that she couldn't use her other abilities at the same time without risking injury of some sort (Chase proved that very effectively). As she descended the stairs, she wished she could have just used her agility to jump down, stairs were too slow. Slow set Bree on edge. On the floor, Bree crept to where Chase had indicated. Sure enough there was a young woman there. She looked like she was barely older than Adam. She was wearing loose clothing that looked more at home for someone from the streets than someone working in a high tech terrorist facility. A faded t-shirt and jeans, and a brownish jacket that might have been grey once. The only thing that actually looked like it belonged in this place, was the metallic cylinder hanging from the belt around her waist. She was leaning against the machine while tapping on a tablet. Bree stood still, the girl continued to tap for a moment before freezing with her eyes glued to the screen. Then the girl smirked and let out a chuckle. There was something almost playfully cruel about the noise, like a small boy laughing at the ant he just fried with a magnifying glass. "Hiyah," She didn't look up from her tablet, "It's Bree, right?" Her voice was childish, and her words slurred.

If Bree was visible she would have visibly paled. The girl laughed again, "Don' worry, s'long as you remain outta sight, I'm the only un who knows you're here." She coughed harshly into her hand. "Cameras don' have audio," She tapped her ear twice before continuing the motion to brush her short blonde hair behind her ear. "People watching the feed will only see me talking to myself, which is," She laughed again, "nothing new." The girl hacked again, but after she stopped she took a brief look at the hand that covered her mouth, shrugged, and continued to tap. "Not tha' there should be anyone lef' to watch the feed, but a few tha' are milling around migh' stumble across i'."

Bree took a step back, she wasn't sure how to deal with this girl. She only knew that if this chick knew about her, she also knew about her brothers.

The girl frowned at her tablet, "aw, don' go nowhere." Bree stopped, the girl sounded in legitimate distress. She tapped a point on her tablet and pain surged through Bree's neck. She gasped and swayed at the pain, but Bree had felt worse just the night before, she could take it. The girl tapped the tablet again and the pain stopped. Bree took a deep breath to settle herself, "Desole, bu' I neede' to prove my poin', I nee' you to hear me ou'." The girl ran her hand through her hair and stared at the tablet "He said you would come, I didn' believe him. Desole. Bu' you can' leave now tha' you're here."

Bree rubbed her neck, she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do, so she just acted, "Who are you?"

The girl smiled again, "So many answers, even more if we look inta the whole philosophy an' our place in the universe and whatno'." She stared intently at the tablet, but whatever focus she might have had was broken by another coughing fit. "I suppose the answer you're looking for though is Carla Peterson. Or Carla, I don' much like Peterson." Carla wiped her mouth and Bree saw a distinct shade of red stain the girl's hand. "I don' ge' why people use both. Or those people who use the middle. Waste of time, if yah ask me." Carla shrugged, "Though I do know a girl who is named after those bugs tha' are really annoying. Yah know?" She swiped her hand in front of her eyes as if trying to swat away the bug she was trying to recall the name of. Carla diverted her eyes to the floor, "She hates me now." Her voice was quiet and just sad. "Why else would she leave me alone?" And she was coughing again.

Bree debated turning visible and then running as fast as she could back to her brothers. But she didn't know anything about the pain, and she didn't want to risk it happening again or to her brothers. If all this girl wanted was to be heard out, Bree could do that for now. This girl sounded like she had taken one too many blows to the head and unfortunately, in Bree's experience, the crazy ones were always the most dangerous. "I don't know. How did you know I'm here?"

"I didn' make you up, you're talking to me."

"No," Bree tried to keep calm; she had spent years dealing with Adam, a child at heart who didn't always make the same sense of the world as she did. She could handle this girl, "How did you know I was here before I spoke?" Bree had to know, if she did then Mr. Davenport could do something to stop it.

Carla closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and opened them, "I tracked you're signal." She flipped her tablet around, on top of a digital floor plan were three colored points, the yellow and green were together and moving along the edge and the red one was more toward the middle. Bree barely got a look at it before Carla flipped it back, but she saw enough to have her heart stop in her chest. "You're bionics give off a distinc' signal and there are sensors all around tha' have been programed to detec' i'." She said it as if it was the most obvious of concepts, "If I inpu' the righ' code, I could shu' them off, overload them, anything really. Bu' they don' know tha' so don' tell them." Carla laughed again, there was definitely blood staining the girl's teeth and lips but if Carla noticed or cared, she gave no indication.

Bree tried to keep her breathing in order, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Yah see these?" She threw her hand out in the general direction of the conveyor belt, then brought her hand back to brush her hair behind her ear. "I made these." She rubbed her eyes with the dexterity of a three year old wiping away tears.

"You made these?" Bree wasn't too sure what she was expected to believe. She wasn't a stranger to smart people who were crazy, but it was normally full of themselves crazy like Douglas or evil crazy like Krane; Carla seemed almost childlike.

"Well, half made them, bu' they're mine." Carla looked up from the tablet and looked at a spot just above to the left of where Bree was standing, "You don' understand. No one does. They don' think I'm capable of anything, they don' know wha' I've done. Wha' I can still do. They don' listen to me, tried to ignore me, bu' they can', no' anymore." She was shaking, "I told them wha' I'd do, but they laughed a' me.

Bree shifted on her feet, "What are you going to do?"

"End them. These are mine, they're all I have lef' of her an' they defile' them, use' them for evil." Carla reached into her pocket and pulled out a flash drive. She tossed it in her hand, and once she caught it she clutched it to her chest. Carla took a deep breath and tossed it on the floor in Bree's general direction. "Here." Bree couldn't decide whether this girl was angry or sad.

Bree was curious so she slowly walked to it and picked it up off the floor. It fell under her invisibility field and vanished from both their sights. She rolled it in her hand, "What is it?"

"An edge." Carla stressed the d.

"Are you helping us?" It seemed off.

"I suppose, bu' in this chess game you're the knigh's an' bishops, well two knigh's an' a bishop, the other bishop is a' home righ'" Carla shrugged, "bu' really, I can only help yah as long as you're necessary to the en' game."

Bree wondered what Carla meant by that, but as the older woman became more and more worked up, her hard sounds in her speech faded, "And what are you?"

"A pawn." Bree didn't know much about chess, but she knew enough to not be so offended by the previous knight comment.

"Who is king?" Bree wasn't interested in leaving just yet, if there were more players she needed to know.

"He was the one who tol' me to invi' you here. I didn' believe you'd come." Bree was about to press for a more concrete answer but Carla interrupted her, "I rea' the papers, I saw the in'erviews, ou' here there is no serious threa' to anything or anybody. No' apparen'ly anyway." She frowned, "You come when the threa' is so big you can' ignore i', then you go back home an' live your life while we wor' righ' under your nose. By the time you go' to us on your own, i' would've been too late." She stressed the t.

"We can't be everywhere at once," Bree wouldn't claim to have a perfect record as far as superhero-ing went, but she and her family did what they could and a lot of people didn't understand that.

Carla laughed but there wasn't any light to it, "Desole, I ge' i', I do, bu' I coul'n' wai'." She was shaking and brought her hand up to brush her hair back, but she grabbed her ear as if trying to block out the sound from her left ear.

"Listen, there is a dangerous chemical spilled all over the floor upstairs, it's toxic and I think you've been infected, it's killing you. Come with me and my brother can help you."

Carla shook her head smiling that blood stained smile of hers, "It's flammable too." But her manic grin turned into more of a grimace

Bree didn't know what to make of that, "Look, I'm trying to help you."

Carla burst into laughter, but it was quite clear that she couldn't really breathe correctly. Fortunately, that meant it was short, "Too little, too late, I'm afraid. She coughed again, and Bree winced at how it seemed to echo in the older girl's chest. Carla's eyes lost focus, "Abou' four months too late."

Bree filed that information away for the time being, "You are clearly in pain _now_. We can help you with that."

"The only _constant_ in life is pain and the only certainty is suffering," Carla released her ear and brushed back her hair, her voice dropped, "We either live with i' or we die from i'" She looked to a place just above Bree's shoulder, "in the long run, i' doesn' matter anyway," She shrugged and looked to the floor, "we all die in the end." And a new wave of coughing began, her face crumpled in distress and Bree was tempted to approach her and even took a step in her direction, "No!" Bree stopped. "No, no, you go, you go away, you leave, you can' be here."

"Who can't be here, Peterson?" Bree almost turned visible at the shock of hearing the new voice, but managed to stay hidden. The man was in formal military looking garb and flanked on both sides by soldiers.

"You" she glared at him, "You can' be here." She swatted the air in front of her like she was trying to kill an annoying fly. "Go away, before something ba' happens to yah. You should've lef' already."

The man ignored her, "Who were you talking to?"

Bree hated the look the man was giving the other girl. "My frien'."

"Where is she?"

"She's righ' there." Carla pointed in Bree's general direction, and Bree froze.

The man looked in her direction and Bree held her breath, but she needn't. The man quickly looked back to Carla, sounding exasperated he said, "Your 'friend' is not here."

"Si, elle est la." Carla started to grab at her ear again. Bree stood stock still, if this man found out where she was she had the feeling that she would be in serious trouble.

"Your friend is dead." Carla flinched as though he struck her, "Now enough of this, how far are you in setting up the tracking protocol?"

"Aimeriez-vous pas savoir?" She said it quietly, deadly.

The man didn't mind her tone, simply rolled his eyes, "In English."

"No' finish' ye', leave me alone. It's no' like we're in any real hurry. You called an evac this morn' don' you remember?" Carla turned around and walked to the edge of the machine and picked up a faded laptop bag that was leaning against it. It was just old enough looking to match with everything else she was wearing. She put her tablet inside and fished out a clear plastic bag. Inside were pills of varying colors.

"Peterson, you have been given plenty of time. My patience is running thin."

Carla reached into the bag and pulled out a white and a blue pill. She extended the bag to the man and his subordinates, "You wan'?"

"No, you will finish this project or there will be consequences."

Carla shrugged, "Your choice." she put the bag back into her bag. She popped the pills in her mouth and swallowed them.

The man stepped forward, and grabbed her arm and in a low voice, "I will not stand for this insolence much longer, remember that you are replaceable and no one will know the difference." He then shoved her back.

Carla stumbled backward, but found her balance before she fell, she rubbed her upper arm where the man's hand had been, "You won' kill me." Her breathing was harsh and labored.

"Try me."

"I can' help you." She wouldn't meet the man's eyes, but she met the eyes of the solider to the right.

"You're making a very good case as to why I need to get rid of you."

"Yin can." Carla tapped her chest just below her neck, "Yin always helps, she knows wha' to do."

"Enough with this nonsense, get your job done. The bionic teens will be here sometime today, and we have to be ready for them." And with that he turned and began to walk away.

"Wha' you mean they're coming?" Carla tilted her head.

The man turned around, "Somebody reported us to the authorities." He waved his hand, "It's no matter. They won't know what hit them. Just you make sure you have your little program up and running. We'll need it now that we know the girl can turn invisible." He trailed off at the end. The man looked hard at Carla as her face fell into a glare. Comprehension fell on his face, "Where did you say your friend was again?"

Carla broke out into insane laughter. And faster than even Bree could keep up with, Carla pulled the cylinder from her belt and pressed a button. A quick bolt of light left the hair above the man's ear smoldering.

The man ran his hand through it, but chuckled deeply, "You missed. But I do thank you, I had been waiting for a reason to kill you."

Carla's smile never faltered, "I don' miss. An' you won' kill me." She turned her head and spat out a glob of blood.

The man pulled his own weapon from his belt, "You seem so sure of that."

"Oui." Carla stood tall. Before the man could fire his weapon, Bree turned visible and rushed him. He went down hard. Bree sprung back up and stood next to Carla. The older girl bowed her head briefly, "Merci." Bree nodded

The man climbed slowly to his feet, "So what are you going to do now, traitor? Run away, like you always have?"

Carla's smile got even larger, "You migh' consider i'." She turned to Bree, "You too."

Bree shook her head, "We can take him." Carla glanced at her and shook her head back.

The man glared at the two girls. Carla didn't pay him any mind. She looked over his shoulder to the soldier on the right, she called out, "I' time Rook!" The soldier nodded to his partner and both ran in the opposite direction.

The man turned and saw that his backup had left, "What is this?"

Carla pulled her hood over her head, "A gambit. Run." Something in the girl's voice made Bree consider it. But there wasn't time anyway. The air erupted in a red fury. Bree was pushed back by the force of it. The angry tongues ate at everything it could touch. The heat was unbearable. Bree squinted her eyes to see through the blood red flames that dominated her surroundings. Bree doubted it was really as quiet as she perceived. But all she could hear was her heart pounding in her throat. Somewhere, she registered the sound of insane laughter and a scream of agony.

Bree shook her head to try and clear the cobwebs of what had just happened. She was moderately successful. She used her speed and circled the flames. But it wasn't normal fire, and depriving it of oxygen didn't work. The fire just continued to grow and burn. Bree knew she couldn't sit and ponder what that meant for Carla. She knew she wouldn't be able to function if she really understood what had happened. All Bree felt was a deep desire to run to her brothers. And so she took off.

The fire was spreading hot and fast, hungry for another victim. Bree had to be careful when navigating it. She was terrified her rampaging emotions would cause her to glitch. She couldn't let that happen. Somewhere in the sea of red, Bree noticed that there was another source for the red light that she knew she would hate should she ever make it out. She saw her brother's high above where she left them on the catwalk, they were in the process of beating down several soldiers. Barely thinking, Bree jumped. Only once in the air did she realize that she was still a few inches too short. Just as she was about to fall back down, two large hands wrapped around her right forearm. She still slammed into the metal grating as her momentum carried her the distance it failed in height. Adam hadn't even begun to pull his sister up unto their landing when more shots ran through the air. Their catwalk shook and Adam's grip on his sister slipped. He grabbed her tighter.

A loud crack split through the air and Bree whimpered. Adam lifted her onto the catwalk as Chase shielded his siblings. Bree had paled considerably and sunk to her knees clutching her arm. Adam knelt beside her as Chase threw a force field at their opponents. Chase then joined his siblings, he was concerned, usually Bree would just shrug off a broken arm. As cruel as it sounded, he had been expecting her to just get up and continue to fight. She was shaking and tears pooled in her eyes. Chase called her name and once she looked at him he asked, "What happened?"

Bree swallowed a lump in her throat, she opened her left hand and presented it to Chase, "She said to find Yin."

Chase took the flash drive from Bree and was about to question her further, when he heard more footsteps all around them, "Okay, we'll figure this out. Can you stand?"

Bree took a deep breath but nodded, "Yeah." She managed to stand, but it was unsteady at best.

Adam looked at her concerned, "Bree, I'm…"

Bree didn't give him any time, "It's fine, Adam." She looked to Chase, "What do you want us to do?"

Chase looked at the plume of flames to one side and the advancing guards on the other, "Let's get out of here." There was unspoken agreement between the three and they took off running the way they came in.

Bree was trailing behind her brothers, and the boys slowed down a bit to allow her to keep up. Bree wasn't having it, "Keep going, I'll keep up."

The boys shared a look but sped up regardless. They broke out into the open air outside and their stomachs' dropped. Countless numbers of soldiers stood between them and freedom. They had a variety of weapons that ranged from regular old guns to the high tech bolt launchers. All three fell back to back in a human triangle. "Chase."

"Give me a minute, Adam."

"We don't have a minute."

Bree's arm was throbbing, but it wasn't anything she wasn't used to. She looked at her arm, then her brothers, then the swarm surrounding them. "Adam's right, we don't." There really wasn't a choice anyway, she grabbed her brothers and tried to run. They made it about ten feet before, sharp and unbearable pain coursed its way between Bree's neck and broken arm. She stumbled and blinked the fog out of her eyes, but it was easier said than done, "Okay, that's not going to work."

Adam looked at his younger brother, "Do we fight?"

They really didn't have much of a choice. Chase managed a shield just before the swarm fired at the three. Any sound was pointless as the air was filled with the roars and cracks and squeals of weapons firing. Adam used his laser vision to destroy the enemy's weapons, but it was slow going. Bree was the only sibling without any long range abilities, a fact that she had always hated gowning up. Normally, she would just move faster than sound and count that just as well as long range, but in this moment she wasn't sure she could get any decent pace going. If she got any more hurt, it would just slow down her brothers. She knew it, they knew it. So she stayed where she was, and hoped against hope that Adam and Chase could hold their own.

They did for a while. Adam was making decent progress with taking out the weapons, but Chase could only hold his shield for so long and while his mind could take it, he simply wasn't strong enough and his shield fractured. The first bullet was the worst. The pain was hot and intense in his back and he barely registered the others. He didn't remember falling to the ground. He didn't remember passing out. Bree quickly knelt beside him. Adam stood over his siblings and continued using his laser vision. He felt several sharp stings hit his chest and arms, but he kept at it. Bree kept on the ground, she might not have been a doctor but she knew enough to know Chase needed help. Adam was slowing down under the tirade of blows, and soon dropped to his knees. Without warning Adam felt a blow to the back of his head just at the base of his skull. His vision swam. Bree looked around at their situation. She really didn't have a lot of options. Her arm had gone back to dully throbbing, her heart beat hard and fast in her chest. Bree thought about what they had done to her brothers, what they would do to them and the rest of the world should they fall here. She thought about how she had failed to save Carla, and how she failed to protect her brothers, she thought of Leo, Mr. Davenport, and Tasha back home. She got mad. She got strong. She stood, and she did what she did best. She ran. And that was the last Adam saw of her before he passed out. At the very least, he was spared the sound of her cry of agony and the sight of her motionless on the ground as her blood pooled around her.

March 24, 2015

Leo crossed the room for the seventy-fourth time. He hadn't hit anything yet, so yay for that. However, having a rubber ducky while trapped in the middle of the ocean didn't make for much of a ray of sunlight. It had been thirty hours and the time was only getting longer. Donald and Douglas had run through every apparently possible path of finding their kids, but each channel fell short. Leo had thrown up seven times out of the worry twisting his stomach into knots. Only, he hadn't eaten anything since and had been reduced to painful dry heaves in between pacing. He didn't care. He just wanted his siblings back. His head kept cycling back to the last time they had disappeared. This was so many times worse. Last time, they had left of their own volition. They had a fighting chance. Here and now, they were just gone.

Tasha had taken to bringing them food that none of them touched, nor did she expect them to. She just needed something to do. She needed something to keep her mind off of what could be happening to her babies. Douglas and Donald could only think of their work.

Silence prevailed. No one could think of anything to say. Approaching hour 34 Leo couldn't take it anymore and slammed his hands down on the far holotable. It gave under his right hand and glass shards flew from it. Everyone stared at him. Leo didn't register the glass piercing his skin. His knees felt weak and buckled underneath him. Tasha wanted to move to comfort her son, but the action didn't come. She just took her son's breakdown as permission for her to start crying into her hands.

Leo looked up and asked the question that was weighing on everyone's mind, "Where are they?"

Mr. Davenport looked to his brother, then his wife then back at his son, "I don't know."

But none of them were about to stop trying to find out.


End file.
